


Walking the dark and light

by Oparu



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, post-ep tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oparu/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set right after "Nothing Personal", spoilers.  </p><p>After Phil and Skye escape, Melinda appears in his hotel room to show him what she found about T.A.H.I.T.I. and they try to deal with that revelation. </p><p>(with talking and sex)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking the dark and light

Phil watches it twice, then again. He doesn't need to see himself because he's learned the words, memorised the horror on his own face but he lets it play until Melinda shuts the laptop.

Sitting back in the cheap hotel chair, he doesn't reach for it.

"Where did you find it?"

"In your coffin." She sets the laptop aside. "Hill said Fury buried it."

He almost smiles. "Literally."

"Yeah."

His hands take her attention, twisting in his lap. Phil doesn't seem to notice. He looks past her at the laptop again, but she puts herself in between him and the table. Instead of reaching for the laptop, he reaches for her. His hands close over her wrists, his grip soft through her leather jacket.

"You came back."

Melinda's hand hovers over his neck, then she drops her fingers to his skin. He feels the same. Just as warm, with tiny hairs that tickle her fingers. He feels human to her, but he always has. He was her humanity, when she had nothing left.

Phil sighs. His breath fills his chest and he leans into her, resting his forehead against her stomach. Her hands drop to his shoulders, her thumbs against his neck.

She could lose him again. The dirt from his grave is still on her skin, in her hair, and he holds her closer. Running her fingers up his neck, she gives herself a last chance to pull away, to be strong and separate. She's given nearly the last year of her life to him, to his causes, keeping him safe. She trusted herself out on the field again because his team needed her.

Because he did.

Is the gnawing in her stomach what he felt after Bahrain when he held her? She couldn't cry or smile; the weight of the world was on her ribs. He sat with her, waited with her until she was more than a shell. He has one of the strongest hearts she's known. His heart lived through death, came back from what lay beyond.

Curling around him, she drops her head over his, sheltering him with her body. His hands slip over her arms, around her back, tugging her closer. They should talk.

Melinda grabs his tie, loosening it from his neck. He catches her hips, pushing her back onto the desk. Cheap hotel rooms aren't new to either of them, and he knows exactly how to work the zipper of her jacket. He pauses, his hand over her heart.

"We don't--"

"I care about you."

He helps her remove his tie, finding a smile. "A lot." Phil tugs her zipper lower, and she meets his hands, pulling it all the way open. "I didn't want to believe you when you told me." Phil shakes his head. "I could be falling apart, going psychotic." He steps back, putting a space between them that stings. "May, you can't--"

Leaving the desk, she backs him towards the bed. "I trust you," she reminds him. "I've always trusted you." Kissing his forehead, she slips her hands beneath his jacket, sliding it free. It falls to the floor and he strips hers off her shoulders. The heat of his fingers brushes the scar by her left shoulder. His thumb runs along it and she grabs his hand. Squeezing it tight, she kisses the back of his hand. "You treated that."

"And this." He rubs the bullet scar on her right arm. "I was kinder the first time."

"I don't--"

"I was mean."

Melinda undoes the buttons of his shirt, slowly working her way down the muscles of his stomach. "I lied to you."

"It seems you had good reason." It's the hitch in his voice that shatters her control. The mystery tore at him but this truth is worse. There's a fragility in the way he tries to smile for her, how her wants her to know he hasn't given up. She kisses him, her lips insistent. It's too hard to watch him be brave, too hard to know she might not be able to save him.

Phil stares at her when they part, his fingers heating her ribs through the thin fabric of her vest.

"If it comes to it, I want you to know, I'll- I won't let you suffer--"

"I know." He kisses just beneath her eye, saving them both from admitting how close that horror might be. "Must be why you had to be on our team."

"Ours?"

"Yeah." He toys with the strap of her vest. "It's always been ours, hasn't it?"

"I didn't intend it to be."

His belt slides free of his trousers, joining his jacket on the floor. "Sometimes your intentions get a little muddled."

She smiles, parting his shirt and exposing the scar on his chest. He knows so many of her scars, on her skin and on her heart. This one is both, this anchor he carries. Covering with her hand, she kisses him again, forcing him to the bed. Straddling his lap, she drops her knees on either side of him.

Pulling her top over her head, she tosses it to the side. "I hope my intentions now are clear enough for you."

He laughs, just a little, and reaches for her hips. "Maybe I'm not sure."

"Why is it so hard to convince you?"

His eyes feast on her skin. "Melinda, I always want to believe you."

"Shut up and take off your shoes."

Sliding from his lap, she bends down to take off her boots. Laces glide beneath her hands and she steps out of them. Her trousers peel from her hips. He hasn't moved. He's quiet, but far more dressed than she is. Taking his hands, she guides them to her top. Thin black fabric bunches in his fingers, then whispers over her head. Phil holds it for a moment, then lets it drop.

"Shoes," she reminds him.

His toes wriggle against the carpet, still within neat dress socks. She lets the flash of another man, teasing her for wearing socks to bed, come and go. She lost him, then lost herself.

She lost Phil, but he's different. He returned. He needs her to be his strength. 

Straddling him again, she kisses him even though both of them expect it to end. Someone will burst into the room, screams will break across the pool, the glass will shatter across the bed--

Phil lifts her, easing her closer. Her hair tickles her bare shoulders as they throw his shirt away together. The bed creaks but it's buried in breath and lips parting. No crisis rises to pull them from the bed. Her body responds before her mind, pressing against him. The scar on his chest brushes her breast and she covers it with her hand. 

"We can stop," he whispers. 

"Do you want to?"

The heat of his erection burns her thigh. "No."

She kisses him again, harder, rocking her hips over him. There's only one way she can do this. She'd like to think she has enough control, that she can protect both of them, but she can't. He might fall apart beneath her hands, so he deserves all of her. She came this far for him, left the office where she was safe and risked everything again. She has a team that she loves and that vulnerability feels like an open wound. It's starting to heal around the edges. She's starting to trust herself.

"I can't--" she begins, but falters. 

He drops his trousers, and takes surprising care with his socks and places them on the chair. "Melinda, this, I--"

"I can't not care about you. I can't make distance between us. I--"

"You can't have this be sex."

She crawls up the bed, crossing her legs near the pillows. He turns, naked, aroused and beautiful. "I can't do that, not with you."

"Do you think that's what I'd want?"

"Sex is physical. You and I, we're more complicated."

Phil follows her up the bed, kneeling in front of her and taking her hands from where they wait on her thighs. "We have complex feelings for each other. I don't think a physical relationship will make it any moreso. I know you're not naked in bed with me to distract me from T.A.H.I.T.I.. Though, if you were doing that," he swallows, "it's working."

She smiles, then brushes her hand over his shoulder. "I just didn't want you to think--"

"I didn't." Phil strokes her thigh. "I know you. When you care about someone, your whole heart goes. I love that about you." He says that so easily, but words fail him less, and he's always been better at filling in the silence when she struggles. He loved her before; still loves her after Bahrain and the quiet that settled on her like fog slipping off the sea. 

She could say she doesn't want a relationship, but they're already in one. She's reworked her life with him orbiting her centre since he came back from the dead. 

Leading his fingers to her underwear, she helps him pull them off. She didn't think to have condoms, like she did in Dublin. If they had the Bus, it would be different.

Melinda kisses him again, less urgent this time. "I'd keep it."

He pulls her to lie half on top of him and they shuffle until they're between the cool white sheets. It takes him a moment to realise what she's referring to, and the permission she's given him. "Okay." His eyes stare into hers, so soft, trusting and grateful. "There won't be any paperwork, not anymore."

She smiles and his expression melts into appreciation. He kisses her, hungry and searching. They should take more time, be more thoughtful, but their bodies need release as badly as they need to keep touching. His fingers find her first, more patient than they were in his youth. He works her until she's panting and slick. She returns the favour with her tongue against his skin, working her way down until she can take him into her mouth. That moan of his is still one of the sexiest things she's heard. 

Melinda rocks her hips over his, settles his hands on her hips and takes him within her. They shift closer, then finish with him still beneath her. Sweat runs down her back in the warm night air. The sheets absorb it and they lie side by side, staring at the featureless ceiling. He kisses his way down her chest, then up her thighs and finally uses his mouth and fingers to make her quiver, then arch against the bed. He's especially proud of the cry she swallows.

She's still tingling when she pulls him in again. They're alive, at the middle of the storm of HYDRA and their world collapsing, but with each other. They fuck, not just because they're alive, but because it feels right. This needs no second guessing, no doubt. He belongs with her, wrapping in her arms. There are words she can't find that she doesn't need when they're touching. 

He raids the vending machine while she's in the bathroom and she returns to a picnic of scattered junk food. They split a slightly warm, incredibly sweet soda and eat, talking about old days, licking chocolate from exposed skin and trying not to get crumbs in the bed.

Phil curls into her chest, calm, with his head on her shoulder. Stroking his neck, tries to remember the last time they lay like this, and how foolish they both were. 

"May? His voice meanders through sleep. 

"I'm here." 

"You know, I'd like to see it someday."

"What?"

"The real Tahiti. We should go sometime, when this is over."

Kissing his head, she agrees. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to suallenparker for being so supportive and her fabulous gif review.


End file.
